March 25, 2025 • 50 mins
In this deeply moving episode, John Bair opens up about the heartbreaking losses of his brother to suicide and his cousin to muscular dystrophy. He shares his struggles growing up in a challenging home environment and how it shaped his journey toward healing. Through his story, John found the strength to build Bair Knuckle Strength, a platform dedicated to empowering individuals to make transformative changes, both mentally and physically. John also introduces his powerful mental health initiative, I Am Not OK (check it out at iamnotok.com), offering a safe space for people to be truthful with themselves, confront their struggles, and begin the healing process. This episode is an honest exploration of grief, resilience, and the power of finding your voice—not just for yourself, but for others too. Tune in to hear how vulnerability, strength, and truth can help us heal together.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
To be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter of the social media.
Thanks for joining me today. I'm excited about today's show
because this season I've been talking about switching gears and
doing that in your life with several different things, because staying,
you know, status quo is really not acceptable to most people,
or shouldn't be acceptable to most people. So today's guest
(00:46):
is somebody who knows all too well about that in
many areas of his life, and we're gonna let him
tell you about that. But today I have John bay Or,
Hey John, how you doing, Britt? I'm doing well. How
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Wonderful? And thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks for coming out today. I appreciate it, of course,
good that sorr. I'm a little consciously. I spilled some water.
Looks like I beat my pants or something like that,
you know, but just sweating. Yeah, but thanks for coming out.
And you know, it's been a hell of a week.
The weather has been brutal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, coblu for
a while, you know, braving these weathers and getting out here. Yeah.
(01:19):
But you know, I don't think that bothers you much,
does it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No? The weather is just another thing that I would
say I have to deal with. But you know, for me,
the mission always supersedes anything. So I just kind of
look at, oh, this is what I have to deal
with today. Okay, no worries, We'll still get the work done.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I don't even think it was that cold, you know that,
you know it at.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The beginning of the week was like some some some
negative or like six you know, early in the morning,
right in the morning, and come on, I get you
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah yeah, and we'll talk about that too, you know.
But yeah, that's maybe one reason why I wasn't around this.
Now that wasn't I had.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Appointments whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The weather doesn't stopped me either. But it was brutally cold.
About letting the dogs out at four and five am?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
How did they do? Did they even go out? Mind? Dogs?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah? They love it outside really yeah, thank god, because
I didn't want to walk them. Okay you wanted to walk?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah. They're actually ticked off at me because I'm not,
you know, like considered the door and stare at me
and I'm like, back, it's cold, man, it's really cold
on my head it you know, I'll make that excuse.
People aren't shoveling, you know, my hip, I'll fall break it. Yeah,
but you know, John, I know, I know you.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I know your story, but I know all your story.
You know, nobody ever who knows everybody's story full But
you know, our story is what really gets us to
where we are and who we are and what we do.
And you know, So who are you? John? Tell everybody?
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well? Uh, my name is John. That's who I am.
What else would you like to know?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Come on, man, you could talk and I know you can.
You're right?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
What do you are? You?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What you do? What do you? Why do you do it?
And you know peel that back? I mean you on
your podcast, same thing. You know, peel back. You know
you talk to people all the time and you actually
peel back their layers. I do to really expose them
and make them vulnerable in many ways on your podcast,
at your studio, Jim and the gym. Now in the gym,
you do that. Yeah, you do that when you're having
(03:12):
conversations with them, just sitting down with coffee.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's easy for you to do that, isn't it. It's
easy to ask the questions.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I wouldn't say it's easy. I would say that
it is what I have become better at. Right, So
sitting here answering the questions, I mean, I'm not in
love with talking about myself. So what I might ask
is I will because I'm here, right, and I'm a guest.
What would you like your audience to know?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Where?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Do you want me to start?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah? Start? Start beginning? Man? Why do you do what
you do? Like? First of all, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, man, that's a good question. There's a lot that
I do. Why I do what I do? The short answer,
I lost my brother to suicide October eighth, two thousand
and seven, and then on October thirtieth, two thousand and eight,
(04:05):
the day after the Phillies won the World Series, I
lost my cousin to muscular dystrophy. And at the time
I was twenty five years old and I had lost
both of my best friends, and I really it crushed
me to the point where I didn't know what to do,
(04:25):
how to move forward, and for a long time I didn't.
It took me two or three months after the shock
of some of those things started to wear off, to
find myself in a place where I was like, Okay,
what am I going to do with what just happened
to me, because the truth is, my brother, after taking
his own life, he had shown me a way to
(04:46):
get out of pain. We know what it's like to
want to get out of pain, to mask that, to
hide it. And I made a conscious decision that while
I had a way out if I wanted it, I
wasn't ready to take that way yet. And the decision
that I made was, I'm going to try everything in
(05:07):
the here and the now. I'm going to work to
find any tool that I can or any way to
move forward, always kind of in the back of my
mind knowing I have an out, so I kind of
felt like I have nothing to lose. Let me hang
around a little longer and see if I can make
this place worth living in. And that's really underneath all
(05:29):
of it is I want to make life so worth
living that nobody would ever consider suicide or leaving early,
or wanting to get caught in an active addiction or
do things that would harm themselves. I know that's a
big utopian goal, but that's basically what I do.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's basically like taking those taboo things and wanting to
be able to expose them and shed light on them
and humanize them, because that's exactly what people don't do.
And that's really what I was looking for when I
said to you, who are you? What the hell do
you do?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Man?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And that's what it is like.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So you know that you talk about two thousand and seven. Yeah,
you know your brother, you're twenty four years old at
the time, twenty four or twenty fourth time. You know
where are you from?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Originally Lansdale, PA, right County.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So a smaller suburban area. Yes, you know where you
know you grew up in that. How How old was
your brother at the time? Twenty all right, so he's
your younger brother.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yes, he was my younger brother.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And he struggled with some things.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I assume he did not struggle with addiction or anything
like that, to be honest. So undiagnosed possibly, Yeah, well, I.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Think I think you know, there's when we talk about
mental health. You know, we are our best doctors, you know,
to go to somebody to have them to say, oh,
you suffer from you know this, this and this, Well
you know I already know that. Yeah, you know, I
can tell I know myself and you know, and if
you're close to somebody, you know that too. You know,
something's just not right and somebody's a little off, and
(07:00):
you know, and you know, we make those comments when
we say them, and we try not to like talk
about it because we're afraid to bring that up because
it is taboo and it's touchy. But you know, at
the age of twenty, you know, you had your whole
life at any people always say, and that's when I
really started my active addiction. And that's when I spent
you know, twenty eight plus years in twenty nine years
in active addiction. So I took that away from me,
(07:22):
and that in a way sometimes you know, it's like
killing yourself in a different way, not in a literal sense,
which is so much more severe and traumatic. But you know,
you know, was there anything that you can attribute that
drove him to that point? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know when we were talking, Britt and I asked
you a similar like, hey, why do you think you
went down that road? And you said, to the effect
of it was, it was a lot of different things.
You know, I woke up with my shirt as my pillow,
and I woke up in near a pile of my
own vomit and things like that, and I don't for him.
(07:59):
I knew he had just recently gone through a tough
breakup with his girlfriend that he had been with for
a long time. On top of that, I compounded that
because I said, I said something really horrible to him
when that happened, and I said, good, I'm glad. I
hope she dies, and he got really upset with me,
(08:22):
and he came after me like he wanted to fight me.
And in hindsight, I knew that he was hurting. And
I can look at the words that I said then
and realized, like I I don't know if I was
attempting to hurt him or to help him our thought,
help him break free from Hey, don't worry about her,
(08:44):
you can move forward. I hope she's gone.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
But you were doing it in a twenty four year
old big brother sort of way I was, which could
be really dickish. Sometimes is complete dick four years older
than I. And you know, I couldn't stand half the
things he said to me, and everything he said to
me I took very personal, and I wanted to go
after him. I want to go after the point where
like I really couldn't stand him, you know, everything about him,
(09:07):
and he would say shit, like that to me, Yeah,
I'd be pissed too, but at the age of twenty.
It's because at the age twenty, we're not I'm sure
enough to understand.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Correct and you know, learned. So anyway, Yeah, so, well,
definitely not. I'm looking back to connect the dots, to
work to understand and while freeing myself from the guilt
that I had compounded right like, that moment wasn't one
(09:34):
of my finest And I can sit here and talk
about it because I know that it's a learning point
now and it's something that I can like branch off
of with the next encounter that I might have where
it's tough, but I don't fall back into reacting onto
something that I'm saying just to hurt somebody.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Did you not like this girl?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Actually I loved her and there was really no problem.
I was upset for him and I wanted that. I
don't know why, but that was my way that I
thought would get him to sort of move beyond it,
and it did.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So you were trying to be on his side like.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Her, if you will, if you will.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, you don't need her she lousy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, I hope she does. She's just exactly but.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Like you know, didn't realize the pain. How long were
they dating for?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I mean, honestly three years, so for him at twenty
years old, maybe even longer. So it was like three
and a half four years. It was a quarter of
his life.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That he had for his first love.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, and I shipped all over it. And so yeah,
I understand why he had rage, and I understand why
he wanted to come at me, And so at that
time that was going on. Then also, my my parents
had split up years before, and they just didn't really
they weren't kind to each other, and they would talk
(10:51):
about each other through us, and we had it was
really tough because we were all living with my mom
at the time in a small apartment because quite frankly,
like I think all of us loved our dad, we
just weren't. We didn't like him all the time, and
it was challenging to have conversations with him and to
(11:12):
be in the same room and really to live under
the same roof. And so we were all okay being
out from under his guys, if you will, but we
were all in a small place together. So then on
top of that, we came from a very sort of
poor mindset family. Even though we were sort of middle
class if you will, and we had food on the
(11:34):
table and heat and things like that, we really didn't
want for things like that. What did lack was like
emotional support, right, so emotionally unavailable parents and then sort
of the My dad was from the Midwest, my mom
also from a small town Landsdale, and the mindset was like, well,
we don't have the money for that, We can't do that.
(11:56):
And you know, money doesn't grow on trees. Kids are
meant to be seen and not heard. Just shut up,
stay in the corner, do what we tell you to do,
and you know everything will be okay. And in reality,
we were just learning how to like basically deregulate, turn
everything off, and when real problems hit, none of us
knew how to do with anything. So that's it was
(12:17):
very volatile at that time. And the day before my
brother took his own life, he and I had gotten
into a fistfight. We had a job together. We were
delivering newspapers. So every night, around midnight, we would get
up and we would go to the newspaper delivery place.
(12:39):
We would pick up our bundles of paper. He would
sit in the back and like stuff them in the
bags and I would drive and throw them out the windows.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
So we kind of like work together that way.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
And the one night, I don't remember exactly everything that happened,
but we pulled up as we were finishing, and I
will take the blame in that he looked me weird
or did something and I took that as an affront,
and I threw a newspaper at him and it almost
hit him in the head and it hit him near
his glasses. And I used to wear glasses. I don't
(13:10):
know if you ever wore glasses anybody. So when anybody
fucks with your eyes, it's like a flip switch gets
flipped and like you see red, and I had it
happen to me. And when I threw the paper at him,
I saw it like glance by his eyes, and he
just like immediately like lit up and started charging after
me and started swinging on me and got me on
(13:32):
the ground and like tried to like hit me, and
I was like maneuvering around, and then he just like
tried to kick me and punch me, and then he
walked away and he walked all the way home After
that day and I finished whatever we were doing put
all the car together whatever, went home. We didn't talk
about anything. Then we got up the next night, went
(13:54):
out and did the newspapers together, and I could sense
how upset and angry and intense he felt behind me,
like I just felt this energy like piercing through the
back of my neck, like he wants to kill me.
And we finished the paper route. We didn't say anything
(14:16):
to each other, and I went upstairs into our apartment
and I told that to my mom and I was like,
I can't be around Tony. I feel like he wants
to kill me. And he wasn't able to control his
anger and rage at that point in our lives either,
and neither was I. I was not either, and so
(14:38):
I locked the door on him, and he went around
and he tried to yell up to my mom to
say like, hey, please let me in, let me in,
and we didn't. So he left and he went to
the gym across the street where we were working out,
and he had this bag of gym clothes, and inside
(14:59):
that bag of jim clothes were like towing straps that
you would wrap on the back of a truck to
put to like a trailer or something. So they were
really strong, really sturdy, and he took one of those
and he hung himself. And so I lived with that
(15:21):
knowing that the day that he died, I not only
did I not have his back, I turned my back
on him. And that is something that has taken me
a long time to shed. The guilt of had survivor's
(15:43):
guilt also in the back of my mind, knowing that
I had I don't know if contribute is the right word. However,
I certainly didn't have the awareness or ability to be
present for him when he needed me most. I don't
believe anybody in our family at that time had the
(16:05):
ability to have that presence, and so quite frankly, Britt,
I believe now if we fast forward just into the
I have a gym and a studio where people come,
and two or three years ago I got a letter
from one of my students. Her dad had died that year,
our gym had been hit by a tornado. It was
(16:27):
one of the worst years of her life. And the
card I still have it at home because it's one
of my most prized possessions now. It's said, basically, John,
in your darkest times, you were always there for me
and for her to write that down and give it
to me and say that out loud was sort of
like the release. It was. I don't know if it
(16:49):
was like the universe saying, hey man, you've gotten to
the point where even though things are hard for you,
you can be present with others. And that really, if
you want to boil it down to what what do
I do? I listen to people, and I can listen
to people in their worst and darkest moments, and not
(17:12):
only not shy away, I'll hang out and if you
feel like you're burning up, I have a bucket of
water that I'm willing to offer you and give it
to you until you can feel like you can move forward.
And there's not many people in the world that I
have found that can do that. And I believe if
there's a gift that came out of it, we could
(17:32):
call it. That is my ability to sit with anybody
going through anything, doesn't matter what it is, doesn't scare me.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So two thousand and seven October, the gym.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
How do I fast forward to there?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Now? So? No, so he has occurred?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Well, he got his bag from the gym and then
walked to a park in Lansdale across the street, So
he took his bag, went to the park across the street.
Did what he did.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
If you think back and you like rewind in your
head other than like the confrontation that you had with
him and being typical brother sort of shit. You know
that brothers? Do you know? Can you like think that
there were things that you may have, you know, seen
now that you didn't see then, like signs other than
(18:28):
the girlfriend or the way he was acting and things
like that. Yeah, I mean, because we're young, you don't
know stuff like that. You just also think, you know,
as my brother, you know, that's as simple as that.
You don't ever have those, especially as you're younger. Yeah,
but as you grew and you learned from that. I
mean that, I mean that that was a pain. You know.
It's one of those taking the pain into purpose sort
of deals. Like I like to say, yes, and so
(18:50):
you did that, so you know, but it took you
to a point to get to and right now you
help people and pain.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I'm of service to people. I would call it in service.
I don't actually believe I can help anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So then that's fast forward to that, like how did
you take that pain and make it into a purpose
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It's switch your gears perfect. So what we're gonna do
is go right back to two thousand and eight, after
I lost my cousin, after I lost my brother, So
right those two things happened and I'm sitting in the
middle of that. Yeah. So the one time in my
life where I felt really, really strong and part of
something bigger than myself. And when this happened, it was
the one memory that came up that allowed me basically
(19:36):
to not fall into addiction because at the time I
was dabbling in oxycontins, so my sort of synthetic version
of heroin. I was dabbling in cocaine. I was dabbling
and all the stuff, and none of it numbed anything
enough to not feel things. So none of that worked. No,
So going through all of that then losing him I
(19:58):
made I told you, I made the decision. Okay, he
showed me how to get out of pain. I've been
taking all these fucking drugs. None of that shit worked.
Raging and being pissed off and angry all the time,
that isn't fucking working. So the one time where I
felt strong was when I was playing football for Central
Bucks West and Doylestown. When I was in high school,
(20:19):
I was fortunate enough to play for a coach who
when I was on that team, we never lost a game.
We went forty five and zero, and we won three
state championships in a row. I don't say that to brag.
I say that because of the discipline and the ability
to work through challenging things was installed in me before
(20:41):
this happened. So when, because I don't know. If I
hadn't had a background of somebody pouring some love and
coaching into me and making things a little tougher so
that I could adapt, that I would have been able
to go back into the gym after losing my brother.
I actually believe had I not that experience, I probably
wouldn't be here sitting with you today, not in this capacity. Anyway,
(21:05):
I might be out on the street and you might
be handing me a bag. I don't know, but it
wouldn't be I don't believe here doing this. So coming
out of that and basically saying, Okay, none of that
stuff is working, I'm gonna go try things. The one
thing that worked was when I was working out with
all the guys in the gym, playing with the football team.
I felt strong and powerful, so I was like, Okay,
(21:28):
I'll do that, go back to the gym. And that's
exactly what I did. Because I had all this energy,
I didn't know what to do with it, and I
needed somewhere to channel it. And that was the most logical,
even though mostly it wasn't. It probably wasn't a logical decision.
It was a I need somewhere to go and rage,
and I might as well just throw some weights around
and you know, just fucking get after it that way.
(21:50):
So I did, and I hopped in the gym. I
started going right after it like I was when I
was sixteen, except I was twenty five and I had
ten years of injuries on top of all of that
football right, and then I had all of that mental
health shit on top of that, and I wasn't able
to train anywhere near like I had. I felt broken
(22:11):
all the goddamn time. It was so painful already everything
I was going through, But then I literally couldn't just
release and get rid of it. So I started to
focus on eating a little differently, my nutrition. It was
like the one thing that I felt like I could control,
and I really understand control freaks from the sense of
(22:33):
when you feel like your world is out of whack,
you're gonna hang on to something and control that, even
if it's everything around you. So I started grabbing for
stuff that I could control my nutrition. It was awesome.
And within a month of doing that, so I had
been going to the same gym that my brother had been.
I decided not to walk away from that and I
(22:55):
went right back into the same place where he was
because I said I was going to face it. So
I started playing basketball with some of those guys that
were I was working out with. And one of those
guys came up to me about a month, six months
or excuse me, a month to six weeks after being
back in the gym pretty consistently, and he just comes
(23:15):
over to me and he's like, Yo, you got a minute. Yeah,
what are you doing? It's like, what do you mean?
He's like, well, you look better and you're not such
an angry dick. Have you changed something? And I was like,
(23:35):
what the fuck are you talking about? Like I literally
got mad at him and I was like, what do
you mean like? And he's like, Yo, man, just I
don't know whatever you're doing. You're doing something good, do
you think you could help me with it? Because I
noticed a change in you And it was then that
at war. Could have been a lot of things leading
(23:56):
up to that, but uh, it felt like a flip,
a switch flipped at that moment because it helped me
understand that the thing that I had taken control of
started to change my behavior and other people noticed that
right Like I didn't think I was changing my behavior.
I thought I was changing my nutrition. I just wanted
(24:18):
to feel better, but that actually resulted me, resulted in
me being will say a little bit better quality person
to be around, are more enjoyable. And it was in
that moment that I realized, wow, like I maybe I
do have some control of me and the things that
I can work on, because again he said, hey, can
you can you assist me with it? And I was
(24:38):
I had no idea what I was doing, but I
knew I wanted to do that versus wherever I was,
So I was like, yeah, I can, I'll figure it out.
And I started to pour myself into learning about nutrition.
I started to pour myself into learning like I knew
how to work out because the coaches had shown me,
but I didn't know how to show others how to
(25:01):
do that, let alone, Like, you know, I was a
twenty something year old kid, but I'm working with thirty
forty fifty year old people. They had very different needs,
very different wants things. I had no idea how to
bridge the gap, and so out of all that pain,
(25:22):
taking the opportunity to kind of like fall back on
something that had felt allowed me to feel strong. Somebody
else noticed that and pulled me forward and out of
that space enough that I could see a little light
beyond the darkness, and I was like, Okay, I'm just
gonna work towards that. And I literally made the decision.
(25:43):
I was like, I'm going to rebuild myself physically, and
of course that's going to lead to me feeling and being.
You know, if I just get ripped and I get strong,
then who's gonna fuck with me? Who's gonna tell me
what to do? Nobody? Cause you know, hello, right, That's
the way I felt at the time. So I poured
myself in to the physical aspects of things and that
went well for a while. I was able to sort
(26:07):
of change my body. People noticed I was a little
bit more well adjusted, and so more people were like
my energy was better, and it started to attract versus repel,
and so I started to attract some people who on
the surface wanted to feel better and get physical. And
what also had happened was because I couldn't train the
(26:29):
way that I normally had, I had to learn because
I had some injuries. I had to learn how to
train in such a way that didn't hurt the injuries
that I had while also producing results and increasing my performance.
And that wasn't really like. People didn't think that way
(26:49):
thirteen fourteen years ago. They were just like, get in
the gym, sweat, kick ass, lose weight. That's the way
you do it, duh, And no, no, it's not. Is
what happened is I started to move and feel a
little better through understanding the mechanics of my body and
the patterns that a body can move and go through.
(27:13):
And I started to realize that there was a better
way to train, and there was a better way to
train people. And so I started kind of down this
like functional movement slash longevity track. You know, people think
they go to the gym and they're like, I want
the six pack, I want the big muscles, I want
to look toned and ripped and lean. I started to
(27:34):
think about, holy crap, I've lived twenty five years of
my life and I hated who I was during that time.
I want to have an opportunity to live a life
where I don't hate who I am. And I also
made another decision where I was like, I'm gonna I
don't like the first twenty five years of my life,
(27:55):
so I'm gonna choose to say I'm gonna live to
about one hundred and twenty five and I'm gonna and
one hundred years working towards who I think I could be.
And that's been the mission of rebuilding myself. Has been
pouring everything into me to understand how to feel better physically.
(28:19):
And that took it. That took me a lot, like
I said, a long way down the road. Then eventually
I got to a point where I was will say
I got into business.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
All right.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Let me back up. I was working out at that gym.
People started to come to me at that gym. I
had built up a clientele in that little gym, so
I started working there. I had been working at some
other job. I quit that job and I jumped in
full time and I was like, Okay, people want this,
I'm gonna give this a go. That job didn't pay
(28:50):
a lot. I mean, that's just not jobs don't tend
to So I found another studio in Ambler, which you
know very well, and it was picking where you're from,
and that's really where things started to shift a little more.
It was more of a training facility or a sports
performance facility, and really a place that valued more the
(29:11):
skill set that I had. It was not just show
up and beat the crap out of somebody and don't
care if they get hurt, just make sure they sweat hard.
That didn't sit well with me morally, Like I just
didn't want to do that. I felt like the world
was already in enough pain, Why the fuck would I
contribute to it. So this new facility allowed me to
kind of flex my new wings, and they understood and
(29:34):
wanted me to start talking about health benefits and longevity
and teaching people how to do things healthily in in
a proper way without beating them up. And so I
worked there for about two years and then things just
didn't quite work out because they wanted to head down
a different path and so did I, and so we
sort of broke off at that one point and I
(29:55):
had a couple of students come to me and they're like, yo,
we want you, and again it was all of this
has come. So I would put myself out there and
I would give them whatever I had, which was really me.
I had nothing else more than just like my presence, me,
my energy, me standing next to you, being with you,
(30:18):
cheering you on. And that was great, except after a while,
it's like, how do you pour from an empty cup?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I was gonna say, well, first of all, you really
never addressed some things that you probably should have. You
sort of like threw your all into it, which is great,
you're moving forward, but like, you know, everything you're telling
me is like everything that you tell people nowadays not
to do. So back then you learned a lot because
(30:46):
nowadays you're different, You speak differently to people, your attitude
towards it as differently. I know this because I know
you nowadays. Back then, but you tell me now is
sort of like shocking. I'm like, really, because everything that
you're saying right now is like sounds real familiar and
it sounds like be on the opposite end. So you
learned a little bit from that. Well, do you think
that's also because maybe, like I'm going to bring it
(31:07):
back to the mental health. You probably didn't address the
mental health. You address your physical health. And you you, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna switch this song to like my food and
my health. And you know I switched it on my food.
I just ate more, you know, so and you know
that didn't give a shit, you know if I could have.
But like you know, and I look at people in
the gym, and that's one reason I hate the gym's
And I told you this many times. I hate going
(31:28):
to the gym because people in the gym. Sometimes I
look at like, is this all you have? Some people?
Because they're there six days a week, seven days a week,
and they can't miss leg day and they can't miss
back day, and they have missed this and cardio And
I get that, and that's a way of life, and
it is and that's great, healthy way of life. But like,
is that all there is to it? Are you missing
(31:48):
a cog somewhere? Yep? You know, because or you know
now you're what forty two, forty four, forty three? Yeah, okay,
sor right there, Yeah, it was close, you were on
it forty three. I was just trying to do the
math seven at twenty five, I listen, you know, and
you look at that like that there's a missing cop.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So you hit on a great point right there, right,
So yes, I jumped into working on my physical health,
working on nutrition things I could control. What that led
to was me then the realization that okay, I can't
just always keep working on this because what happened was
I had started my business, I had some clientele. You
(32:32):
start getting into personal relationships, right except then when you're
in a personal relationship and you're a person who hurts,
and then you hurt the people that you're in a
relationship with, you start to realize, a man, just working
on my fitness, just working on my nutrition didn't change
(32:52):
all my behaviors.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Well well, because what you did was you It became
an addiction. And people don't look at stuff like that
and they forget about that. Like you took what is
a very positive thing because it is positive. What you
do is positive, what that what working out is positive?
Help being out there, it's positive. Let's face it. You know,
more than half of America can listen to that. You
know the way we are, and that's cool. I'm warm,
(33:15):
I'm in that half, but uh, it becomes an addiction.
Anything's an obsession. Those obsessions are addictions, you know, and
people that are you know, And I liken that to
anything like that. People become obsessed over and focused or
hyper focused on. And we've give a hyper vision about
something that consumes you. That's not so healthy.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Well, all right, so let's flip it back on you
because it's your show. But I'm gonna coming.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Out of wrong answer about me.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, well I know it's not, but it ties in
to this point. So what did you do after getting
out of addiction? Did you? Did you decide to start
taking care of yourself? No? You threw yourself into fucking
Philly Unknown.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
How to take care of myself a little bit?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
How to go to io?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, come out of that, and but then it stopped
And where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And then I had to go to meetings I had
to do but no I did, But then I did
throw myself in PILLI your no, so fuck you? All right?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right, so fuck me back to you? All right, no problem.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
So, but it does become an addiction. I get it's
an obsession. And I did sets for years over Philly Unknown,
and I threw myself into it. But then I had
to learn that balance. So how do you learn that balance? John,
because you are also that a type personality. I believe
that I'm driven.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I wouldn't call myself a type EGG, but I am
very driven.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Driven I think. And then there's a regiment who I.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Think type are assholes. I'm not an asshole.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, but that's a night that's a connotation people have
of it because most Type a's are talked about as assholes.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
All Right, you know what, that's lope. Maybe that's unfair.
Maybe that's unfair. Maybe that's unfair. That's fair. Okay, So yes,
I'm a driven person, but I got how did I
get to the point where I had to look and
go to the next level When I started realizing that, Yeah,
like I was focusing all my energy in time on
this thing and the returns weren't showing up in the
relationship in other areas where I wanted to grow and
(35:05):
get better, which then I had to realize, hey, dude,
there's still more work to do. And it took two
failed relationships that really really hurt. I was with a
one woman for like a month, not a month, a
year and a half and another one like a year,
and that was within like a three year period, and
they both ended really negatively, and the only commonality in
(35:29):
that was me, right. So I then started to realize, like, yo,
you've got the physical under control, the nutrition, all those things,
what else is there? And that's where like those layers like,
you don't know what you don't know until you become
aware of what you do know. So I was like, Okay,
(35:49):
I'm doing all this stuff right, but there's these other
things that you still want that you don't have. And emotionally,
I started to realize I was just like my parents.
I was unavailable, I was not pre I was unable
to I was able to be present with my clients
because it's something that gratified me and obviously gave me
something back. It did. I won't lie. You told me
(36:10):
on my podcast that you started Philly unknown selfishly because
you needed a place to sleep. That's why I started
bare knuckle strength, absolutely selfishly, to.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Throw ourselves into something to like I said, turn that
pain into purpose. Correct, But if we don't work on
all aspects and become well rounded, then we become that asshole.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
You know, they're plain and simple fair enough, you know.
Then we become that and you start to realize that
because now all of a sudden, you're not a three
dimensional person. You know, think about that. There's no well
rounded to it. It's not three dimensional because that's all
you are. And I'll give it like a close friend
of mine and he was also my boss for many years.
He owned the restaurant bar that I barket ended that
(36:50):
and he was in that cult that they call CrossFit,
and he was one of those that would come in
and be like that, oh my gosh, you know, just
gee how many I did. And I was like, really, dude,
I'm like, that's all you got for me every day?
Get out of my face. Only because if that's all
you are.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Then.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Then you suck because you're only that little microcosm of
who you could be. I'm sorry, That's why I feel
so phill the unknown. I sucked for after a while
because guess what, that's all I became. And then I
had that attitude was I'm Philly unknown, right, That's who
I am. That's what I meant to beat. And I
was like, wait, maybe there's a little bit more to
this life, you know. And then you had to then
(37:30):
I branch out. That's why I have to put up.
I have to have boundaries, healthy boundaries, you know, setting them.
I have trouble still sure, but you know so you
know that leads to you back to bare knuckle. Yes,
all right, let's talk about that. You got it that right?
There is sort of a therapy, I believe, well not
(37:50):
just for you, but for the people. Let go there.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yes, I'm a demographic of person. Well you've seen the
demographic of person, and that demographic pretty wide.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, but it's wide as far as you know, maybe
age from the above forty group that because barre knuckles
is forty over. Yes, the body types, the backgrounds, but
not the demographic of the mental aspect of why we're
there and why we're there and why do people come
to you in that aspect?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Well, because they went to the CrossFit gym, or they
went to the Lulu Lemon gym, and they went to
the big box gym and they didn't fit in. And
what I have come to find, and this might not
be the best term for it, however, I think it
sums it up. We're the island of misfit toys. So
if you don't fit in, anywhere else. I got a
(38:44):
space for you, because all I want to do is
listen to who you are. I don't want to fit
you in a box. I don't want to make you
do anything that you don't want to do. Here's I
here's why I'm so passionate about like working with people
in their physical sets, because I know if they don't
feel good and they're not okay, will say in their body,
(39:05):
they're not producing their best work in the world, and
most likely they're probably hurting people or holding back and
slowing things down. That isn't acceptable to me. So when
somebody has a shoulder pain or a hip pain or
whatever in their.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Eye, it'll it'll hey, don't take your personally.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I pointed, yeah, I knee a back whatever, how's that right?
And there you go ahead. Whatever the thing is that
kind of messes with you. If that's the thing holding
you back and then you refuse to look at it,
you are a liability to other people, not an asset,
(39:44):
and that's not okay with me. That's what I started
to realize, my anger, my pain, who I was. I
was a liability to other people because I couldn't walk
into a room and have them trust who I was.
They would walk on eggshells around me. And that's not
a way to live any to be around any kind
of person who either shuts down because they don't know
(40:05):
how to express themselves, or they rage and they just
go over the top of everybody because they don't know
how to express themselves. That kind of shit. I started
to realize I was doing it, and I was tired
of it, and it wasn't getting me what I wanted.
So I had to look in the mirror and say
to myself, Hey man, I'm not okay.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
So now that you've brought that up finally, now it's
because you had the shirt on. And this is a
great way to like segue into this before you know,
we what is the premise of I know what it is,
but what is the premise of I am not okay?
And why is that so important to you? And how
have you cultivated that got it?
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Has anybody asked you if you're okay and you said
yes when you knew that you weren't all the time? Great,
Well that's my problem. We're all lying to each other
all the time, and no change can come from that.
If you want to make it as simple as that,
and I could unpack it if you'd like.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So if somebody were to say, so, somebody says to
you know, how John, how are you doing? He says,
I'm not okay.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Well, I mean it's not that I like make an
emphasis of it, but they're like, hey, how you doing that? Well,
if you ask me, I say like, I am not okay.
I would because that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
How long did it take you to get there?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Two thousand and twenty one, so three years ago, so
forty years, forty years to start telling myself the truth?
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's it's a long time, long time, but you got there.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
You just have to remind yourself that every day. Yes, yes,
it's It's a humbling thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's something that if you didn't grow up experiencing or
it wasn't modeled to you in life to really just
say what you say, what's real in a way that
you are okay saying in it. Some people might not
say and I've had people say I would never say
that to somebody out loud. Okay, then don't. What would
you say? Because if you continue to lie, I'm going
(42:05):
to call you out. We're not gonna sit here and
do that shit where I can see that you're struggling
with something and you want to tell me that you're
okay when I fucking know you're not. Because usually what
happens is we're trying to work together and that thing
that you're not okay with is holding you back from
what you want, which is why I've learned to be like, Okay,
I'm gonna shine a light on it. I'm not going
(42:27):
to extract it. I'm not going to pull it out.
That's not my work. But if we're going to work together,
my work is to be the light.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And you know, it's it's funny when you say it,
like in recovery, we have that saying, especially in the rooms,
you know, the truth shall set you free, and there's
nothing more liberating than that. However, in today's society, everything's taboo,
you know, the stigma. There's so much stigma out there.
(42:57):
There's a stigma talking about suicide. Be able to talk
about something like that is amazing, you know, to be
able to be free, to talk about vulnerable, to be
able to talk about addiction like we do, to be
able to talk about mental health, all these taboo things
that when we were younger and we had parents like
we did, telling us you don't talk about that, suck
it up and just deal with it. We don't have problems,
you know, we don't have to deal with this. I
think these are all things that have to be talked
(43:20):
about and have to be a voice forced so that
voice is powerful. Yes, you do that in many aspects
of it. I do, and you do that for many people.
You do that at Bare Knuckles, which is your studio,
And where's that located?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Fort Washington in Montgomery County, Montgomery count right outside of Philly.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
It's not that far. And you know, for hey, if
it's for yourself, it's worth it for sure. But what
do you do for yourself then to balance all this?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Okay? So I mean, yes, I work on my physical
and my nutrition. And I started Bare Knuckles strength come
into the realization that I wanted to start telling myself
the truth. And then when I looked in the mirror
the one day, like I had in the back of
my head like you're okay, You're fine, just get on
with it, and I wasn't. And I literally looked at
(44:07):
myself and I was like, you're You're not okay. And
that led to Okay, I've been doing all this physical stuff.
What's the next level. It's time for me. I have
gotten myself to where I'm strong enough to truly be
vulnerable to talk about these hard things. For I didn't
have the constitution. I needed to rebuild myself physically to
(44:31):
lead to the talking. Some people are really good at
the talking and on the back end find themselves needed
to take care of themselves physically, right and because they
do so much for other people. So it really just
depends on where you're coming from. I did it, was
you absolutely, Well, you're That's why we like each other.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You are so mission driven and I love what you
do that you threw yourself into it at your own
detriment for a little bit. You're starting to I saw
the post that you put out that you're going to Florida.
You're gonna do some self care. Look at you, man, like,
this is what your people need to see. Is you
taking care of you, because then they can keep buying
in because they know you'll be there for them. Me
(45:13):
on the flip was I was physically working out all
these things, but I wasn't talking about shit, and I
sure as fuck wasn't sharing it with anybody in my
inner circle. Then when I kind of came to that
realization of I am not okay. Within six weeks, I
bought the website i amnookay dot com and I started
developing that as sort of like a blog, an expression,
(45:33):
a place where I could pour some of those words into.
And that led me to my podcast, right the realization
that it was time to start talking about these things.
The cool part of that was it wasn't me per
se that was exactly like I need to start a podcast.
I knew I needed to talk about it. My mom
(45:54):
came to me one day, sort of out of left field,
and she's like, John, I think we should start a podcast,
and I think we should talk about what happened with Tony.
I think we should talk about what happened when you
guys were growing up and me and your dad got divorced.
And that was really excuse me. The impetus for starting
a podcast was I thought it might be twenty thirty
(46:15):
episodes of just us sort of doing sitting down group therapy,
getting things out. What I didn't realize was when we
started doing that, I would get like messages on Instagram
and I'd get emails and people are like, Yo, what
you guys are doing is freaking unbelievable. The stuff that
you're talking about out loud in front of people, How
(46:38):
the hell are you doing that? And well, what I
realized was we jumped all the way into the deep
end again, because that's a space where not a lot
of people are. First of all, if it's that heavy,
you won't even put words to it because you can't
access it. Yet. You have to feel safe inside yourself
(46:59):
some way, either somebody makes you feel safe or you
learn to make your feel self feel safe before you
can kind of peel back the layer of getting to
the real root of what's underneath all of your pain.
And so going down this road with my mom and
my sister, I should add, we all would sit down,
and we sat down for about seventeen or eighteen episodes
(47:20):
before I started interviewing other people and bringing others from
the outside in. But we called it bear at All
because we wanted to literally say everything, put it out,
and get it outside of us. And like I said,
doing that brought another level of power. These people were like, yo,
I have a story. You have a story.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
A story.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
And what I realized was I was like, Okay, well,
it doesn't have to just be me, my mom and
my sister sitting here trauma dumping all the time. We
could go and talk to people and understand their story
as the whole Right, they're humans, we're humans. What led
you to where you are? What led you to where
you are? Oh? I see mine was this, but yours
(48:06):
is that, And I could see how I could get
there if I did that too. I'm gonna borrow that
from you. And the telling of these stories, the healing,
the camaraderie, the community is starting to come out of that.
I don't want to be around a bunch of hurt
fucking people all the time. I want to be around
people who are working on hurting less and doing more.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
And that's what you're doing right now. And that's it
is the power connection, power telling the story being vulnerable.
You know, everybody has that story, you know, and the
play on words bear because your last name baar b
A I R b A Bare Knuckle Studio.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Is your studio out bare knuckle Strength Strength, that's okay
strength bks B Knuckle Strength, Yes, And your podcast is
Bear it All, Bear It All, the Kinsugi Chronicles.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
And your website is you still have I am not okay.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So I have two websites. We'll say www dot Bare
knucklestrength dot com b A I r Our Knuckle Strength
or www dot I A M N O t ok
dot com.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
That's a great website to have.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It's an amazing website to have. That's the digital real estate.
I didn't realize with such a.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Living absolutely, But you know, and I think there's power
in everything that you talked about today. I mean, you
talked about some taboo things. If we had a ton
of time, we talk about more and more things and
being able to share that, and I think that helps
everybody else's journey. You know, that's why being a voice
is so important. That's why it's important talking about why
switching gears helps people in life. Yes, it's helped you,
(49:36):
it's and you now have helped so many others because
of that, and you continue to do so. So that's great.
But thank you so much for coming out today. Glad.
We finding that this has been a long time coming,
been planning and I think since before COVID.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Uh it's been a while. Yeah, yeah, because you were
shooting Philly unknown. I think at the time with Justin
which was like right in the middle of COVID and
it's been three and a half years.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
We got we got you know, patience man. Yeah, but
I thank you. I thank you for all you do
for me, for everybody else, and you know, keep doing
it for everybody else out there. Check them out. Check
out John We're gonna get you some information on him,
but John Bear. Check out Bare Knuckles Strength, which is
an amazing studio, and check out I am not okay.
Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Today, John Britt, Thank you for having me see you
in the gym.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Absolutely and everybody else out there, thank you all for
showing up. As always, remember whatever it is you stand for,
be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter. This is Soucili Media.
Have a great rest of your day.
To be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter of the social media.
Thanks for joining me today. I'm excited about today's show
because this season I've been talking about switching gears and
doing that in your life with several different things, because staying,
you know, status quo is really not acceptable to most people,
or shouldn't be acceptable to most people. So today's guest
(00:46):
is somebody who knows all too well about that in
many areas of his life, and we're gonna let him
tell you about that. But today I have John bay Or,
Hey John, how you doing, Britt? I'm doing well. How
are you?
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Wonderful? And thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Thanks for coming out today. I appreciate it, of course,
good that sorr. I'm a little consciously. I spilled some water.
Looks like I beat my pants or something like that,
you know, but just sweating. Yeah, but thanks for coming out.
And you know, it's been a hell of a week.
The weather has been brutal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, coblu for
a while, you know, braving these weathers and getting out here. Yeah.
(01:19):
But you know, I don't think that bothers you much,
does it.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
No? The weather is just another thing that I would
say I have to deal with. But you know, for me,
the mission always supersedes anything. So I just kind of
look at, oh, this is what I have to deal
with today. Okay, no worries, We'll still get the work done.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I don't even think it was that cold, you know that,
you know it at.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
The beginning of the week was like some some some
negative or like six you know, early in the morning,
right in the morning, and come on, I get you
in the morning.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yeah yeah, and we'll talk about that too, you know.
But yeah, that's maybe one reason why I wasn't around this.
Now that wasn't I had.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Appointments whatever, whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
The weather doesn't stopped me either. But it was brutally cold.
About letting the dogs out at four and five am?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
How did they do? Did they even go out? Mind? Dogs?
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah? They love it outside really yeah, thank god, because
I didn't want to walk them. Okay you wanted to walk?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah. They're actually ticked off at me because I'm not,
you know, like considered the door and stare at me
and I'm like, back, it's cold, man, it's really cold
on my head it you know, I'll make that excuse.
People aren't shoveling, you know, my hip, I'll fall break it. Yeah,
but you know, John, I know, I know you.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I know you do.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I know your story, but I know all your story.
You know, nobody ever who knows everybody's story full But
you know, our story is what really gets us to
where we are and who we are and what we do.
And you know, So who are you? John? Tell everybody?
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Well? Uh, my name is John. That's who I am.
What else would you like to know?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Come on, man, you could talk and I know you can.
You're right?
Speaker 2 (02:50):
What do you are? You?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
What you do? What do you? Why do you do it?
And you know peel that back? I mean you on
your podcast, same thing. You know, peel back. You know
you talk to people all the time and you actually
peel back their layers. I do to really expose them
and make them vulnerable in many ways on your podcast,
at your studio, Jim and the gym. Now in the gym,
you do that. Yeah, you do that when you're having
(03:12):
conversations with them, just sitting down with coffee.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It's easy for you to do that, isn't it. It's
easy to ask the questions.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, I wouldn't say it's easy. I would say that
it is what I have become better at. Right, So
sitting here answering the questions, I mean, I'm not in
love with talking about myself. So what I might ask
is I will because I'm here, right, and I'm a guest.
What would you like your audience to know?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Where?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Do you want me to start?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah? Start? Start beginning? Man? Why do you do what
you do? Like? First of all, what do you do?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, man, that's a good question. There's a lot that
I do. Why I do what I do? The short answer,
I lost my brother to suicide October eighth, two thousand
and seven, and then on October thirtieth, two thousand and eight,
(04:05):
the day after the Phillies won the World Series, I
lost my cousin to muscular dystrophy. And at the time
I was twenty five years old and I had lost
both of my best friends, and I really it crushed
me to the point where I didn't know what to do,
(04:25):
how to move forward, and for a long time I didn't.
It took me two or three months after the shock
of some of those things started to wear off, to
find myself in a place where I was like, Okay,
what am I going to do with what just happened
to me, because the truth is, my brother, after taking
his own life, he had shown me a way to
(04:46):
get out of pain. We know what it's like to
want to get out of pain, to mask that, to
hide it. And I made a conscious decision that while
I had a way out if I wanted it, I
wasn't ready to take that way yet. And the decision
that I made was, I'm going to try everything in
(05:07):
the here and the now. I'm going to work to
find any tool that I can or any way to
move forward, always kind of in the back of my
mind knowing I have an out, so I kind of
felt like I have nothing to lose. Let me hang
around a little longer and see if I can make
this place worth living in. And that's really underneath all
(05:29):
of it is I want to make life so worth
living that nobody would ever consider suicide or leaving early,
or wanting to get caught in an active addiction or
do things that would harm themselves. I know that's a
big utopian goal, but that's basically what I do.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
It's basically like taking those taboo things and wanting to
be able to expose them and shed light on them
and humanize them, because that's exactly what people don't do.
And that's really what I was looking for when I
said to you, who are you? What the hell do
you do?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Man?
Speaker 1 (06:03):
And that's what it is like.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
All right.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So you know that you talk about two thousand and seven. Yeah,
you know your brother, you're twenty four years old at
the time, twenty four or twenty fourth time. You know
where are you from?
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Originally Lansdale, PA, right County.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So a smaller suburban area. Yes, you know where you
know you grew up in that. How How old was
your brother at the time? Twenty all right, so he's
your younger brother.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yes, he was my younger brother.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
And he struggled with some things.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I assume he did not struggle with addiction or anything
like that, to be honest. So undiagnosed possibly, Yeah, well, I.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Think I think you know, there's when we talk about
mental health. You know, we are our best doctors, you know,
to go to somebody to have them to say, oh,
you suffer from you know this, this and this, Well
you know I already know that. Yeah, you know, I
can tell I know myself and you know, and if
you're close to somebody, you know that too. You know,
something's just not right and somebody's a little off, and
(07:00):
you know, and you know, we make those comments when
we say them, and we try not to like talk
about it because we're afraid to bring that up because
it is taboo and it's touchy. But you know, at
the age of twenty, you know, you had your whole
life at any people always say, and that's when I
really started my active addiction. And that's when I spent
you know, twenty eight plus years in twenty nine years
in active addiction. So I took that away from me,
(07:22):
and that in a way sometimes you know, it's like
killing yourself in a different way, not in a literal sense,
which is so much more severe and traumatic. But you know,
you know, was there anything that you can attribute that
drove him to that point? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know when we were talking, Britt and I asked
you a similar like, hey, why do you think you
went down that road? And you said, to the effect
of it was, it was a lot of different things.
You know, I woke up with my shirt as my pillow,
and I woke up in near a pile of my
own vomit and things like that, and I don't for him.
(07:59):
I knew he had just recently gone through a tough
breakup with his girlfriend that he had been with for
a long time. On top of that, I compounded that
because I said, I said something really horrible to him
when that happened, and I said, good, I'm glad. I
hope she dies, and he got really upset with me,
(08:22):
and he came after me like he wanted to fight me.
And in hindsight, I knew that he was hurting. And
I can look at the words that I said then
and realized, like I I don't know if I was
attempting to hurt him or to help him our thought,
help him break free from Hey, don't worry about her,
(08:44):
you can move forward. I hope she's gone.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
But you were doing it in a twenty four year
old big brother sort of way I was, which could
be really dickish. Sometimes is complete dick four years older
than I. And you know, I couldn't stand half the
things he said to me, and everything he said to
me I took very personal, and I wanted to go
after him. I want to go after the point where
like I really couldn't stand him, you know, everything about him,
(09:07):
and he would say shit, like that to me, Yeah,
I'd be pissed too, but at the age of twenty.
It's because at the age twenty, we're not I'm sure
enough to understand.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Correct and you know, learned. So anyway, Yeah, so, well,
definitely not. I'm looking back to connect the dots, to
work to understand and while freeing myself from the guilt
that I had compounded right like, that moment wasn't one
(09:34):
of my finest And I can sit here and talk
about it because I know that it's a learning point
now and it's something that I can like branch off
of with the next encounter that I might have where
it's tough, but I don't fall back into reacting onto
something that I'm saying just to hurt somebody.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Did you not like this girl?
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Actually I loved her and there was really no problem.
I was upset for him and I wanted that. I
don't know why, but that was my way that I
thought would get him to sort of move beyond it,
and it did.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So you were trying to be on his side like.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Her, if you will, if you will.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, you don't need her she lousy.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, I hope she does. She's just exactly but.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Like you know, didn't realize the pain. How long were
they dating for?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I mean, honestly three years, so for him at twenty
years old, maybe even longer. So it was like three
and a half four years. It was a quarter of
his life.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
That he had for his first love.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yes, and I shipped all over it. And so yeah,
I understand why he had rage, and I understand why
he wanted to come at me, And so at that
time that was going on. Then also, my my parents
had split up years before, and they just didn't really
they weren't kind to each other, and they would talk
(10:51):
about each other through us, and we had it was
really tough because we were all living with my mom
at the time in a small apartment because quite frankly,
like I think all of us loved our dad, we
just weren't. We didn't like him all the time, and
it was challenging to have conversations with him and to
(11:12):
be in the same room and really to live under
the same roof. And so we were all okay being
out from under his guys, if you will, but we
were all in a small place together. So then on
top of that, we came from a very sort of
poor mindset family. Even though we were sort of middle
class if you will, and we had food on the
(11:34):
table and heat and things like that, we really didn't
want for things like that. What did lack was like
emotional support, right, so emotionally unavailable parents and then sort
of the My dad was from the Midwest, my mom
also from a small town Landsdale, and the mindset was like, well,
we don't have the money for that, We can't do that.
(11:56):
And you know, money doesn't grow on trees. Kids are
meant to be seen and not heard. Just shut up,
stay in the corner, do what we tell you to do,
and you know everything will be okay. And in reality,
we were just learning how to like basically deregulate, turn
everything off, and when real problems hit, none of us
knew how to do with anything. So that's it was
(12:17):
very volatile at that time. And the day before my
brother took his own life, he and I had gotten
into a fistfight. We had a job together. We were
delivering newspapers. So every night, around midnight, we would get
up and we would go to the newspaper delivery place.
(12:39):
We would pick up our bundles of paper. He would
sit in the back and like stuff them in the
bags and I would drive and throw them out the windows.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
So we kind of like work together that way.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
And the one night, I don't remember exactly everything that happened,
but we pulled up as we were finishing, and I
will take the blame in that he looked me weird
or did something and I took that as an affront,
and I threw a newspaper at him and it almost
hit him in the head and it hit him near
his glasses. And I used to wear glasses. I don't
(13:10):
know if you ever wore glasses anybody. So when anybody
fucks with your eyes, it's like a flip switch gets
flipped and like you see red, and I had it
happen to me. And when I threw the paper at him,
I saw it like glance by his eyes, and he
just like immediately like lit up and started charging after
me and started swinging on me and got me on
(13:32):
the ground and like tried to like hit me, and
I was like maneuvering around, and then he just like
tried to kick me and punch me, and then he
walked away and he walked all the way home After
that day and I finished whatever we were doing put
all the car together whatever, went home. We didn't talk
about anything. Then we got up the next night, went
(13:54):
out and did the newspapers together, and I could sense
how upset and angry and intense he felt behind me,
like I just felt this energy like piercing through the
back of my neck, like he wants to kill me.
And we finished the paper route. We didn't say anything
(14:16):
to each other, and I went upstairs into our apartment
and I told that to my mom and I was like,
I can't be around Tony. I feel like he wants
to kill me. And he wasn't able to control his
anger and rage at that point in our lives either,
and neither was I. I was not either, and so
(14:38):
I locked the door on him, and he went around
and he tried to yell up to my mom to
say like, hey, please let me in, let me in,
and we didn't. So he left and he went to
the gym across the street where we were working out,
and he had this bag of gym clothes, and inside
(14:59):
that bag of jim clothes were like towing straps that
you would wrap on the back of a truck to
put to like a trailer or something. So they were
really strong, really sturdy, and he took one of those
and he hung himself. And so I lived with that
(15:21):
knowing that the day that he died, I not only
did I not have his back, I turned my back
on him. And that is something that has taken me
a long time to shed. The guilt of had survivor's
(15:43):
guilt also in the back of my mind, knowing that
I had I don't know if contribute is the right word. However,
I certainly didn't have the awareness or ability to be
present for him when he needed me most. I don't
believe anybody in our family at that time had the
(16:05):
ability to have that presence, and so quite frankly, Britt,
I believe now if we fast forward just into the
I have a gym and a studio where people come,
and two or three years ago I got a letter
from one of my students. Her dad had died that year,
our gym had been hit by a tornado. It was
(16:27):
one of the worst years of her life. And the
card I still have it at home because it's one
of my most prized possessions now. It's said, basically, John,
in your darkest times, you were always there for me
and for her to write that down and give it
to me and say that out loud was sort of
like the release. It was. I don't know if it
(16:49):
was like the universe saying, hey man, you've gotten to
the point where even though things are hard for you,
you can be present with others. And that really, if
you want to boil it down to what what do
I do? I listen to people, and I can listen
to people in their worst and darkest moments, and not
(17:12):
only not shy away, I'll hang out and if you
feel like you're burning up, I have a bucket of
water that I'm willing to offer you and give it
to you until you can feel like you can move forward.
And there's not many people in the world that I
have found that can do that. And I believe if
there's a gift that came out of it, we could
(17:32):
call it. That is my ability to sit with anybody
going through anything, doesn't matter what it is, doesn't scare me.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So two thousand and seven October, the gym.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
How do I fast forward to there?
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Now? So? No, so he has occurred?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Well, he got his bag from the gym and then
walked to a park in Lansdale across the street, So
he took his bag, went to the park across the street.
Did what he did.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
If you think back and you like rewind in your
head other than like the confrontation that you had with
him and being typical brother sort of shit. You know
that brothers? Do you know? Can you like think that
there were things that you may have, you know, seen
now that you didn't see then, like signs other than
(18:28):
the girlfriend or the way he was acting and things
like that. Yeah, I mean, because we're young, you don't
know stuff like that. You just also think, you know,
as my brother, you know, that's as simple as that.
You don't ever have those, especially as you're younger. Yeah,
but as you grew and you learned from that. I
mean that, I mean that that was a pain. You know.
It's one of those taking the pain into purpose sort
of deals. Like I like to say, yes, and so
(18:50):
you did that, so you know, but it took you
to a point to get to and right now you
help people and pain.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
I'm of service to people. I would call it in service.
I don't actually believe I can help anybody.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
So then that's fast forward to that, like how did
you take that pain and make it into a purpose
for yourself.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
It's switch your gears perfect. So what we're gonna do
is go right back to two thousand and eight, after
I lost my cousin, after I lost my brother, So
right those two things happened and I'm sitting in the
middle of that. Yeah. So the one time in my
life where I felt really, really strong and part of
something bigger than myself. And when this happened, it was
the one memory that came up that allowed me basically
(19:36):
to not fall into addiction because at the time I
was dabbling in oxycontins, so my sort of synthetic version
of heroin. I was dabbling in cocaine. I was dabbling
and all the stuff, and none of it numbed anything
enough to not feel things. So none of that worked. No,
So going through all of that then losing him I
(19:58):
made I told you, I made the decision. Okay, he
showed me how to get out of pain. I've been
taking all these fucking drugs. None of that shit worked.
Raging and being pissed off and angry all the time,
that isn't fucking working. So the one time where I
felt strong was when I was playing football for Central
Bucks West and Doylestown. When I was in high school,
(20:19):
I was fortunate enough to play for a coach who
when I was on that team, we never lost a game.
We went forty five and zero, and we won three
state championships in a row. I don't say that to brag.
I say that because of the discipline and the ability
to work through challenging things was installed in me before
(20:41):
this happened. So when, because I don't know. If I
hadn't had a background of somebody pouring some love and
coaching into me and making things a little tougher so
that I could adapt, that I would have been able
to go back into the gym after losing my brother.
I actually believe had I not that experience, I probably
wouldn't be here sitting with you today, not in this capacity. Anyway,
(21:05):
I might be out on the street and you might
be handing me a bag. I don't know, but it
wouldn't be I don't believe here doing this. So coming
out of that and basically saying, Okay, none of that
stuff is working, I'm gonna go try things. The one
thing that worked was when I was working out with
all the guys in the gym, playing with the football team.
I felt strong and powerful, so I was like, Okay,
(21:28):
I'll do that, go back to the gym. And that's
exactly what I did. Because I had all this energy,
I didn't know what to do with it, and I
needed somewhere to channel it. And that was the most logical,
even though mostly it wasn't. It probably wasn't a logical decision.
It was a I need somewhere to go and rage,
and I might as well just throw some weights around
and you know, just fucking get after it that way.
(21:50):
So I did, and I hopped in the gym. I
started going right after it like I was when I
was sixteen, except I was twenty five and I had
ten years of injuries on top of all of that
football right, and then I had all of that mental
health shit on top of that, and I wasn't able
to train anywhere near like I had. I felt broken
(22:11):
all the goddamn time. It was so painful already everything
I was going through, But then I literally couldn't just
release and get rid of it. So I started to
focus on eating a little differently, my nutrition. It was
like the one thing that I felt like I could control,
and I really understand control freaks from the sense of
(22:33):
when you feel like your world is out of whack,
you're gonna hang on to something and control that, even
if it's everything around you. So I started grabbing for
stuff that I could control my nutrition. It was awesome.
And within a month of doing that, so I had
been going to the same gym that my brother had been.
I decided not to walk away from that and I
(22:55):
went right back into the same place where he was
because I said I was going to face it. So
I started playing basketball with some of those guys that
were I was working out with. And one of those
guys came up to me about a month, six months
or excuse me, a month to six weeks after being
back in the gym pretty consistently, and he just comes
(23:15):
over to me and he's like, Yo, you got a minute. Yeah,
what are you doing? It's like, what do you mean?
He's like, well, you look better and you're not such
an angry dick. Have you changed something? And I was like,
(23:35):
what the fuck are you talking about? Like I literally
got mad at him and I was like, what do
you mean like? And he's like, Yo, man, just I
don't know whatever you're doing. You're doing something good, do
you think you could help me with it? Because I
noticed a change in you And it was then that
at war. Could have been a lot of things leading
(23:56):
up to that, but uh, it felt like a flip,
a switch flipped at that moment because it helped me
understand that the thing that I had taken control of
started to change my behavior and other people noticed that
right Like I didn't think I was changing my behavior.
I thought I was changing my nutrition. I just wanted
(24:18):
to feel better, but that actually resulted me, resulted in
me being will say a little bit better quality person
to be around, are more enjoyable. And it was in
that moment that I realized, wow, like I maybe I
do have some control of me and the things that
I can work on, because again he said, hey, can
you can you assist me with it? And I was
(24:38):
I had no idea what I was doing, but I
knew I wanted to do that versus wherever I was,
So I was like, yeah, I can, I'll figure it out.
And I started to pour myself into learning about nutrition.
I started to pour myself into learning like I knew
how to work out because the coaches had shown me,
but I didn't know how to show others how to
(25:01):
do that, let alone, Like, you know, I was a
twenty something year old kid, but I'm working with thirty
forty fifty year old people. They had very different needs,
very different wants things. I had no idea how to
bridge the gap, and so out of all that pain,
(25:22):
taking the opportunity to kind of like fall back on
something that had felt allowed me to feel strong. Somebody
else noticed that and pulled me forward and out of
that space enough that I could see a little light
beyond the darkness, and I was like, Okay, I'm just
gonna work towards that. And I literally made the decision.
(25:43):
I was like, I'm going to rebuild myself physically, and
of course that's going to lead to me feeling and being.
You know, if I just get ripped and I get strong,
then who's gonna fuck with me? Who's gonna tell me
what to do? Nobody? Cause you know, hello, right, That's
the way I felt at the time. So I poured
myself in to the physical aspects of things and that
went well for a while. I was able to sort
(26:07):
of change my body. People noticed I was a little
bit more well adjusted, and so more people were like
my energy was better, and it started to attract versus repel,
and so I started to attract some people who on
the surface wanted to feel better and get physical. And
what also had happened was because I couldn't train the
(26:29):
way that I normally had, I had to learn because
I had some injuries. I had to learn how to
train in such a way that didn't hurt the injuries
that I had while also producing results and increasing my performance.
And that wasn't really like. People didn't think that way
(26:49):
thirteen fourteen years ago. They were just like, get in
the gym, sweat, kick ass, lose weight. That's the way
you do it, duh, And no, no, it's not. Is
what happened is I started to move and feel a
little better through understanding the mechanics of my body and
the patterns that a body can move and go through.
(27:13):
And I started to realize that there was a better
way to train, and there was a better way to
train people. And so I started kind of down this
like functional movement slash longevity track. You know, people think
they go to the gym and they're like, I want
the six pack, I want the big muscles, I want
to look toned and ripped and lean. I started to
(27:34):
think about, holy crap, I've lived twenty five years of
my life and I hated who I was during that time.
I want to have an opportunity to live a life
where I don't hate who I am. And I also
made another decision where I was like, I'm gonna I
don't like the first twenty five years of my life,
(27:55):
so I'm gonna choose to say I'm gonna live to
about one hundred and twenty five and I'm gonna and
one hundred years working towards who I think I could be.
And that's been the mission of rebuilding myself. Has been
pouring everything into me to understand how to feel better physically.
(28:19):
And that took it. That took me a lot, like
I said, a long way down the road. Then eventually
I got to a point where I was will say
I got into business.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
All right.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Let me back up. I was working out at that gym.
People started to come to me at that gym. I
had built up a clientele in that little gym, so
I started working there. I had been working at some
other job. I quit that job and I jumped in
full time and I was like, Okay, people want this,
I'm gonna give this a go. That job didn't pay
(28:50):
a lot. I mean, that's just not jobs don't tend
to So I found another studio in Ambler, which you
know very well, and it was picking where you're from,
and that's really where things started to shift a little more.
It was more of a training facility or a sports
performance facility, and really a place that valued more the
(29:11):
skill set that I had. It was not just show
up and beat the crap out of somebody and don't
care if they get hurt, just make sure they sweat hard.
That didn't sit well with me morally, Like I just
didn't want to do that. I felt like the world
was already in enough pain, Why the fuck would I
contribute to it. So this new facility allowed me to
kind of flex my new wings, and they understood and
(29:34):
wanted me to start talking about health benefits and longevity
and teaching people how to do things healthily in in
a proper way without beating them up. And so I
worked there for about two years and then things just
didn't quite work out because they wanted to head down
a different path and so did I, and so we
sort of broke off at that one point and I
(29:55):
had a couple of students come to me and they're like, yo,
we want you, and again it was all of this
has come. So I would put myself out there and
I would give them whatever I had, which was really me.
I had nothing else more than just like my presence, me,
my energy, me standing next to you, being with you,
(30:18):
cheering you on. And that was great, except after a while,
it's like, how do you pour from an empty cup?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
I was gonna say, well, first of all, you really
never addressed some things that you probably should have. You
sort of like threw your all into it, which is great,
you're moving forward, but like, you know, everything you're telling
me is like everything that you tell people nowadays not
to do. So back then you learned a lot because
(30:46):
nowadays you're different, You speak differently to people, your attitude
towards it as differently. I know this because I know
you nowadays. Back then, but you tell me now is
sort of like shocking. I'm like, really, because everything that
you're saying right now is like sounds real familiar and
it sounds like be on the opposite end. So you
learned a little bit from that. Well, do you think
that's also because maybe, like I'm going to bring it
(31:07):
back to the mental health. You probably didn't address the
mental health. You address your physical health. And you you, oh, yeah,
I'm gonna switch this song to like my food and
my health. And you know I switched it on my food.
I just ate more, you know, so and you know
that didn't give a shit, you know if I could have.
But like you know, and I look at people in
the gym, and that's one reason I hate the gym's
And I told you this many times. I hate going
(31:28):
to the gym because people in the gym. Sometimes I
look at like, is this all you have? Some people?
Because they're there six days a week, seven days a week,
and they can't miss leg day and they can't miss
back day, and they have missed this and cardio And
I get that, and that's a way of life, and
it is and that's great, healthy way of life. But like,
is that all there is to it? Are you missing
(31:48):
a cog somewhere? Yep? You know, because or you know
now you're what forty two, forty four, forty three? Yeah, okay,
sor right there, Yeah, it was close, you were on
it forty three. I was just trying to do the
math seven at twenty five, I listen, you know, and
you look at that like that there's a missing cop.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
So you hit on a great point right there, right,
So yes, I jumped into working on my physical health,
working on nutrition things I could control. What that led
to was me then the realization that okay, I can't
just always keep working on this because what happened was
I had started my business, I had some clientele. You
(32:32):
start getting into personal relationships, right except then when you're
in a personal relationship and you're a person who hurts,
and then you hurt the people that you're in a
relationship with, you start to realize, a man, just working
on my fitness, just working on my nutrition didn't change
(32:52):
all my behaviors.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Well well, because what you did was you It became
an addiction. And people don't look at stuff like that
and they forget about that. Like you took what is
a very positive thing because it is positive. What you
do is positive, what that what working out is positive?
Help being out there, it's positive. Let's face it. You know,
more than half of America can listen to that. You
know the way we are, and that's cool. I'm warm,
(33:15):
I'm in that half, but uh, it becomes an addiction.
Anything's an obsession. Those obsessions are addictions, you know, and
people that are you know, And I liken that to
anything like that. People become obsessed over and focused or
hyper focused on. And we've give a hyper vision about
something that consumes you. That's not so healthy.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Well, all right, so let's flip it back on you
because it's your show. But I'm gonna coming.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Out of wrong answer about me.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, well I know it's not, but it ties in
to this point. So what did you do after getting
out of addiction? Did you? Did you decide to start
taking care of yourself? No? You threw yourself into fucking
Philly Unknown.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
How to take care of myself a little bit?
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Right?
Speaker 1 (33:59):
How to go to io?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, come out of that, and but then it stopped
And where'd you go?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
And then I had to go to meetings I had
to do but no I did, But then I did
throw myself in PILLI your no, so fuck you? All right?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right, so fuck me back to you? All right, no problem.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
So, but it does become an addiction. I get it's
an obsession. And I did sets for years over Philly Unknown,
and I threw myself into it. But then I had
to learn that balance. So how do you learn that balance? John,
because you are also that a type personality. I believe
that I'm driven.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I wouldn't call myself a type EGG, but I am
very driven.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Driven I think. And then there's a regiment who I.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Think type are assholes. I'm not an asshole.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah, but that's a night that's a connotation people have
of it because most Type a's are talked about as assholes.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
All Right, you know what, that's lope. Maybe that's unfair.
Maybe that's unfair. Maybe that's unfair. That's fair. Okay, So yes,
I'm a driven person, but I got how did I
get to the point where I had to look and
go to the next level When I started realizing that, Yeah,
like I was focusing all my energy in time on
this thing and the returns weren't showing up in the
relationship in other areas where I wanted to grow and
(35:05):
get better, which then I had to realize, hey, dude,
there's still more work to do. And it took two
failed relationships that really really hurt. I was with a
one woman for like a month, not a month, a
year and a half and another one like a year,
and that was within like a three year period, and
they both ended really negatively, and the only commonality in
(35:29):
that was me, right. So I then started to realize, like, yo,
you've got the physical under control, the nutrition, all those things,
what else is there? And that's where like those layers like,
you don't know what you don't know until you become
aware of what you do know. So I was like, Okay,
(35:49):
I'm doing all this stuff right, but there's these other
things that you still want that you don't have. And emotionally,
I started to realize I was just like my parents.
I was unavailable, I was not pre I was unable
to I was able to be present with my clients
because it's something that gratified me and obviously gave me
something back. It did. I won't lie. You told me
(36:10):
on my podcast that you started Philly unknown selfishly because
you needed a place to sleep. That's why I started
bare knuckle strength, absolutely selfishly, to.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Throw ourselves into something to like I said, turn that
pain into purpose. Correct, But if we don't work on
all aspects and become well rounded, then we become that asshole.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
You know, they're plain and simple fair enough, you know.
Then we become that and you start to realize that
because now all of a sudden, you're not a three
dimensional person. You know, think about that. There's no well
rounded to it. It's not three dimensional because that's all
you are. And I'll give it like a close friend
of mine and he was also my boss for many years.
He owned the restaurant bar that I barket ended that
(36:50):
and he was in that cult that they call CrossFit,
and he was one of those that would come in
and be like that, oh my gosh, you know, just
gee how many I did. And I was like, really, dude,
I'm like, that's all you got for me every day?
Get out of my face. Only because if that's all
you are.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Then.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Then you suck because you're only that little microcosm of
who you could be. I'm sorry, That's why I feel
so phill the unknown. I sucked for after a while
because guess what, that's all I became. And then I
had that attitude was I'm Philly unknown, right, That's who
I am. That's what I meant to beat. And I
was like, wait, maybe there's a little bit more to
this life, you know. And then you had to then
(37:30):
I branch out. That's why I have to put up.
I have to have boundaries, healthy boundaries, you know, setting them.
I have trouble still sure, but you know so you
know that leads to you back to bare knuckle. Yes,
all right, let's talk about that. You got it that right?
There is sort of a therapy, I believe, well not
(37:50):
just for you, but for the people. Let go there.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yes, I'm a demographic of person. Well you've seen the
demographic of person, and that demographic pretty wide.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, but it's wide as far as you know, maybe
age from the above forty group that because barre knuckles
is forty over. Yes, the body types, the backgrounds, but
not the demographic of the mental aspect of why we're
there and why we're there and why do people come
to you in that aspect?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
Well, because they went to the CrossFit gym, or they
went to the Lulu Lemon gym, and they went to
the big box gym and they didn't fit in. And
what I have come to find, and this might not
be the best term for it, however, I think it
sums it up. We're the island of misfit toys. So
if you don't fit in, anywhere else. I got a
(38:44):
space for you, because all I want to do is
listen to who you are. I don't want to fit
you in a box. I don't want to make you
do anything that you don't want to do. Here's I
here's why I'm so passionate about like working with people
in their physical sets, because I know if they don't
feel good and they're not okay, will say in their body,
(39:05):
they're not producing their best work in the world, and
most likely they're probably hurting people or holding back and
slowing things down. That isn't acceptable to me. So when
somebody has a shoulder pain or a hip pain or
whatever in their.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Eye, it'll it'll hey, don't take your personally.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
I pointed, yeah, I knee a back whatever, how's that right?
And there you go ahead. Whatever the thing is that
kind of messes with you. If that's the thing holding
you back and then you refuse to look at it,
you are a liability to other people, not an asset,
(39:44):
and that's not okay with me. That's what I started
to realize, my anger, my pain, who I was. I
was a liability to other people because I couldn't walk
into a room and have them trust who I was.
They would walk on eggshells around me. And that's not
a way to live any to be around any kind
of person who either shuts down because they don't know
(40:05):
how to express themselves, or they rage and they just
go over the top of everybody because they don't know
how to express themselves. That kind of shit. I started
to realize I was doing it, and I was tired
of it, and it wasn't getting me what I wanted.
So I had to look in the mirror and say
to myself, Hey man, I'm not okay.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
So now that you've brought that up finally, now it's
because you had the shirt on. And this is a
great way to like segue into this before you know,
we what is the premise of I know what it is,
but what is the premise of I am not okay?
And why is that so important to you? And how
have you cultivated that got it?
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Has anybody asked you if you're okay and you said
yes when you knew that you weren't all the time? Great,
Well that's my problem. We're all lying to each other
all the time, and no change can come from that.
If you want to make it as simple as that,
and I could unpack it if you'd like.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
So if somebody were to say, so, somebody says to
you know, how John, how are you doing? He says,
I'm not okay.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Well, I mean it's not that I like make an
emphasis of it, but they're like, hey, how you doing that? Well,
if you ask me, I say like, I am not okay.
I would because that's the truth.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
How long did it take you to get there?
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Two thousand and twenty one, so three years ago, so
forty years, forty years to start telling myself the truth?
Speaker 1 (41:32):
It's it's a long time, long time, but you got there.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
You just have to remind yourself that every day. Yes, yes,
it's It's a humbling thing, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
It's something that if you didn't grow up experiencing or
it wasn't modeled to you in life to really just
say what you say, what's real in a way that
you are okay saying in it. Some people might not
say and I've had people say I would never say
that to somebody out loud. Okay, then don't. What would
you say? Because if you continue to lie, I'm going
(42:05):
to call you out. We're not gonna sit here and
do that shit where I can see that you're struggling
with something and you want to tell me that you're
okay when I fucking know you're not. Because usually what
happens is we're trying to work together and that thing
that you're not okay with is holding you back from
what you want, which is why I've learned to be like, Okay,
I'm gonna shine a light on it. I'm not going
(42:27):
to extract it. I'm not going to pull it out.
That's not my work. But if we're going to work together,
my work is to be the light.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
And you know, it's it's funny when you say it,
like in recovery, we have that saying, especially in the rooms,
you know, the truth shall set you free, and there's
nothing more liberating than that. However, in today's society, everything's taboo,
you know, the stigma. There's so much stigma out there.
(42:57):
There's a stigma talking about suicide. Be able to talk
about something like that is amazing, you know, to be
able to be free, to talk about vulnerable, to be
able to talk about addiction like we do, to be
able to talk about mental health, all these taboo things
that when we were younger and we had parents like
we did, telling us you don't talk about that, suck
it up and just deal with it. We don't have problems,
you know, we don't have to deal with this. I
think these are all things that have to be talked
(43:20):
about and have to be a voice forced so that
voice is powerful. Yes, you do that in many aspects
of it. I do, and you do that for many people.
You do that at Bare Knuckles, which is your studio,
And where's that located?
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Fort Washington in Montgomery County, Montgomery count right outside of Philly.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
It's not that far. And you know, for hey, if
it's for yourself, it's worth it for sure. But what
do you do for yourself then to balance all this?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Okay? So I mean, yes, I work on my physical
and my nutrition. And I started Bare Knuckles strength come
into the realization that I wanted to start telling myself
the truth. And then when I looked in the mirror
the one day, like I had in the back of
my head like you're okay, You're fine, just get on
with it, and I wasn't. And I literally looked at
(44:07):
myself and I was like, you're You're not okay. And
that led to Okay, I've been doing all this physical stuff.
What's the next level. It's time for me. I have
gotten myself to where I'm strong enough to truly be
vulnerable to talk about these hard things. For I didn't
have the constitution. I needed to rebuild myself physically to
(44:31):
lead to the talking. Some people are really good at
the talking and on the back end find themselves needed
to take care of themselves physically, right and because they
do so much for other people. So it really just
depends on where you're coming from. I did it, was
you absolutely, Well, you're That's why we like each other.
Speaker 1 (44:50):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
You are so mission driven and I love what you
do that you threw yourself into it at your own
detriment for a little bit. You're starting to I saw
the post that you put out that you're going to Florida.
You're gonna do some self care. Look at you, man, like,
this is what your people need to see. Is you
taking care of you, because then they can keep buying
in because they know you'll be there for them. Me
(45:13):
on the flip was I was physically working out all
these things, but I wasn't talking about shit, and I
sure as fuck wasn't sharing it with anybody in my
inner circle. Then when I kind of came to that
realization of I am not okay. Within six weeks, I
bought the website i amnookay dot com and I started
developing that as sort of like a blog, an expression,
(45:33):
a place where I could pour some of those words into.
And that led me to my podcast, right the realization
that it was time to start talking about these things.
The cool part of that was it wasn't me per
se that was exactly like I need to start a podcast.
I knew I needed to talk about it. My mom
(45:54):
came to me one day, sort of out of left field,
and she's like, John, I think we should start a podcast,
and I think we should talk about what happened with Tony.
I think we should talk about what happened when you
guys were growing up and me and your dad got divorced.
And that was really excuse me. The impetus for starting
a podcast was I thought it might be twenty thirty
(46:15):
episodes of just us sort of doing sitting down group therapy,
getting things out. What I didn't realize was when we
started doing that, I would get like messages on Instagram
and I'd get emails and people are like, Yo, what
you guys are doing is freaking unbelievable. The stuff that
you're talking about out loud in front of people, How
(46:38):
the hell are you doing that? And well, what I
realized was we jumped all the way into the deep
end again, because that's a space where not a lot
of people are. First of all, if it's that heavy,
you won't even put words to it because you can't
access it. Yet. You have to feel safe inside yourself
(46:59):
some way, either somebody makes you feel safe or you
learn to make your feel self feel safe before you
can kind of peel back the layer of getting to
the real root of what's underneath all of your pain.
And so going down this road with my mom and
my sister, I should add, we all would sit down,
and we sat down for about seventeen or eighteen episodes
(47:20):
before I started interviewing other people and bringing others from
the outside in. But we called it bear at All
because we wanted to literally say everything, put it out,
and get it outside of us. And like I said,
doing that brought another level of power. These people were like, yo,
I have a story. You have a story.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
A story.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
And what I realized was I was like, Okay, well,
it doesn't have to just be me, my mom and
my sister sitting here trauma dumping all the time. We
could go and talk to people and understand their story
as the whole Right, they're humans, we're humans. What led
you to where you are? What led you to where
you are? Oh? I see mine was this, but yours
(48:06):
is that, And I could see how I could get
there if I did that too. I'm gonna borrow that
from you. And the telling of these stories, the healing,
the camaraderie, the community is starting to come out of that.
I don't want to be around a bunch of hurt
fucking people all the time. I want to be around
people who are working on hurting less and doing more.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
And that's what you're doing right now. And that's it
is the power connection, power telling the story being vulnerable.
You know, everybody has that story, you know, and the
play on words bear because your last name baar b
A I R b A Bare Knuckle Studio.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
Is your studio out bare knuckle Strength Strength, that's okay
strength bks B Knuckle Strength, Yes, And your podcast is
Bear it All, Bear It All, the Kinsugi Chronicles.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
And your website is you still have I am not okay.
Speaker 2 (48:53):
So I have two websites. We'll say www dot Bare
knucklestrength dot com b A I r Our Knuckle Strength
or www dot I A M N O t ok
dot com.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
That's a great website to have.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It's an amazing website to have. That's the digital real estate.
I didn't realize with such a.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
Living absolutely, But you know, and I think there's power
in everything that you talked about today. I mean, you
talked about some taboo things. If we had a ton
of time, we talk about more and more things and
being able to share that, and I think that helps
everybody else's journey. You know, that's why being a voice
is so important. That's why it's important talking about why
switching gears helps people in life. Yes, it's helped you,
(49:36):
it's and you now have helped so many others because
of that, and you continue to do so. So that's great.
But thank you so much for coming out today. Glad.
We finding that this has been a long time coming,
been planning and I think since before COVID.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Uh it's been a while. Yeah, yeah, because you were
shooting Philly unknown. I think at the time with Justin
which was like right in the middle of COVID and
it's been three and a half years.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
We got we got you know, patience man. Yeah, but
I thank you. I thank you for all you do
for me, for everybody else, and you know, keep doing
it for everybody else out there. Check them out. Check
out John We're gonna get you some information on him,
but John Bear. Check out Bare Knuckles Strength, which is
an amazing studio, and check out I am not okay.
Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
Today, John Britt, Thank you for having me see you
in the gym.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Absolutely and everybody else out there, thank you all for
showing up. As always, remember whatever it is you stand for,
be a voice. I'm Brick Carpenter. This is Soucili Media.
Have a great rest of your day.
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